Report by Dipti Ranjan Kanungo; Bhubaneswar : The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in Orissa has developed an intranet-based drug distribution monitoring system whereby drug requirement, gathering as well as disbursement to district and sub district levels can be easily tracked. This will help outlining the requirement and avoid stock out positions. A special training programme for this purpose was inaugurated by health and family welfare secretary, Mrs Anu Garg, whereby 60 participants were trained on use of proMIS at the state drug management unit in Bhubaneswar.Mission Director, Mr Sushil Kumar Lohani, Director empowered procurement wing, government of India, Ms Sujaya Krishnan, and Mr Peter Mellon, team leader of EPW were present on the occasion.The Procurement Management Information Systems (proMIS) based on Tamilnadu model is being developed in order to computerise the complete procurement process, from procurement planning till the final delivery, in order to bring in transparency, competitiveness, timely supplies, record keeping and to facilitate reasoned and informed decision making. This will also facilitate transferring of medicines from the district having surplus of medicines to the districts in scarcity of it.The proMIS is piloted in three states namely Orissa, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. However, realising the potential and achievement of NRHM Orissa, all the 30 districts has been chosen for this purpose where as three districts each has been selected in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, official sources said.The drugs and other essential items as such vaccines, TB and malaria medicines, received from Central and state government sources will be fed into the intranet and the user with a pass word can access the same thus getting to know the exact stock position of these consumables making it easy to initiate the requirement.The proMIS has been developed as an expandable, replicable and adaptive model for any policy decision taken by the Government of India in terms of Procurement and logistics.Thirty five separate drug warehouses in all the district headquarters hospitals, three medical colleges, as well as Capital Hospital, Bhubaneswar and IGH, Rourkela are planned for strengthening the warehouse structure. As many as 22 of them have already been constructed.